Studies of recent eruptions have improved our understanding of volcanic ash transport and deposition, but have also raised important questions about the behaviour of far‐travelled (distal) volcanic ash. In particular, it is difficult to reconcile estimates of distal ash mass and transport distance determined from eyewitness accounts, mapped deposits, satellite‐based observations and cryptotephra records. Here we address this p...

Volcanic ash is dispersed in the atmosphere according to meteorology and particle properties, including size and shape. However, the multiple definitions of size and shape for non‐spherical particles affect our ability to use physical particle properties to understand tephra transport. Moreover, although particles are often excluded from operational ash dispersion model setups, ash in tephra deposits 1000 km from source can ex...